Character attributes (stats)

As shown on the status screen:

こうげきりょく

Attack Power

ちから

ぼうぎょ

Strength

Defense

すばやさ

かいひりつ

Agility

Evade Rate

たいりょく

まほうぼうぎょ

Stamina

Magic Defense

まりょく

まほうかいひりつ

Magic Power

Magic Evade Rate

None of these values directly affect any of the
others, though more than one may affect the same thing. All values
in the left column are basic character parameters and may be
raised using Genjuu level-up bonuses or enhanced by equipment,
but do not increase otherwise. All values in the right column vary
somewhat from character to character, but are primarily determined
by equipment. The following information on what they do is
summarized from Terii Senshi's Algorithms FAQ.

Strength (str) contributes to physical damage.

The value is doubled (but capped at 255)
and added to attack power to use as a multiplier. Because of the
cap, raising total strength beyond 128 is meaningless. Monsters
use a strength value randomly chosen from 56 to 63 when combat
begins. Note that since strength is only one factor in the multiplier,
attack damage is not proportional to it, and double strength means
less than double attack damage. However, strength does affect
physical special attacks, unlike attack power, which is usually
ignored or overridden.

Agility (agi) determines the fill rate of the time
gauge.

The value (agi + 20) is used as a
speed multiplier. Due to the added constant, it takes more than
double the agility to make double the speed (for instance, 84 agi
is twice as fast as 32 agi). Note that this affects only the delay
between turns and does not affect other time-based effects such
as duration of status changes or frequency of poison damage,
which are controlled by the system timer. Agility also has no
effect on Steal success rate, regardless of the agi bonus the
Thief's Bracelet provides. Thanks to the use of a byte value,
any agility over 235 will cause an overflow, but this is unreachable
under normal circumstances anyway.

Stamina (stm) is
something of the black sheep of the status screen. Higher stamina
increases the amount 'regenerate' status and the Tama's Bell
accessory heal, but also increases the amount of damage that
'poison' and 'slip' status inflict. However, its primary purpose is to
provide resistance to many instant-death attacks (such as
Death) and percent-damage
attacks (such as Gravity).

Attacks that stamina can block will fail
approximately (stamina / 128)% of the time, after the usual chance
to miss. Stamina for monsters is set to 16 + (max HP / 512), rounded
down and capped at 40, which occurs at 12,288 or greater max HP.
This gives monsters about a 1/8 minimum to 5/16 maximum, or
roughly 13% to 32%, chance to avoid stamina-blockable attacks.

Magic power (mag) acts as a simple multiplier for magic damage or
healing.

Note that because magic power is a
multiplier on its own, rather than being factored into a multiplier
like strength is, magic effectiveness is directly proportional to
magic power. In other words, double the magic power means
spells with numeric results are twice as effective.

Attack power (atk) contributes to normal attack damage.

The value is added to (str x 2) or 255,
whichever is smaller, for use as a multiplier. However, attack
power is typically ignored or overridden when using physical
skills. For instance, Edgar's Drill always uses attack power = 191,
regardless of his equipped weapon. Also note that the displayed
value is sometimes misleading, such as when using a Genji's
Glove and two weapons, which will show attack power as (base
+ weapon 1 attack + weapon 2 attack) even though what you
really get are two indepenent hits, each of which only uses the
weapon associated with that strike.

Magic evade rate (MEvd)
reduces the hit chance for avoidable magic
attacks, and also for blockable physical attacks thanks to a
bug.

Chance to hit is approximately
[ (hit rate) * (1 - [MEvd/128]) ]%, unless hit rate is 255, which is
considered a perfect hit rate and ignores evasion. In other words,
start with base hit rate, then (if less than 255) remove 1/128 of that
for every point of opposing MEvd. This means that an MEvd of 128
or higher guarantees evasion of any avoidable attack. When
MEvd is 0, as is the case for most monsters, chance to hit = hit rate,
so anything with a hit rate of at least 100 will always hit unless other
factors interfere (such as status immunity or stamina blocking).

To put it another way, let's take a common
hit rate value as an example. Most weapons and the mainstay
offensive spells have a hit rate of 150. To reduce the chance to hit
below 100%, the target's MEvd must be at least 43, high enough
to cancel out a third of this. If it's any lower, the attack will always
hit. At 60 MEvd, the chance is reduced to about 80%. Against 100
MEvd, it drops to under 33%. 120 MEvd reduces the chance
to under 10%.

Levelis the single
most influential statistic, affecting damage for nearly everything
and success rate for quite a few things.

Damage Types

There are eight types of elemental damage, called 属性
(zokusei, traits) in the game and typically
referred to as "elements" in English discussion:

If the target of an elemental attack is immune to (negates) the
element, the damage is zero. If resistant to the element, the damage is halved. If
weak against the element, damage is doubled. If the target absorbs the element,
the amount is unchanged, but becomes healing rather than damage. These
adjustments take place at the end of damage calculation and therefore affect
the final damage after all other modifiers.

Whenever an attack has more than one trait and the target
absorbs at least one of them, then the target absorbs the entire attack, regardless
of the other attack traits. Otherwise, if any is negated, the whole attack is negated,
otherwise it's halved if any are halved. However, if the target does not absorb, negate,
or halve any of the traits, but is weak to at least one, even if not all, the attack will
inflict double damage.

Similarly, if a character wears multiple pieces of equipment that
have different effects on any single trait, absorption overrides immunity, which
overrides halving, which overrides weakness.

As an example of both, let's say that a character is wearing
something that is weak against Flame and halves
Wind, and something else that negates
Flame (and never mind that no such equipment
exists). Anyway, Flame immunity overrides
Flame weakness, so this character takes no
damage from Flame and half damage from
Wind. If hit with Melton (a
Flame / Wind
attack), Flame immunity takes precedence
over wind resistance, so the character takes no damage.

Because damage from 'poison' has the
Poison trait, it is affected accordingly
by weakness, resistance, or absorption of the same. Immunity to the
Poison trait additionally confers immunity
to 'poison' status, rather than simply negating the damage, with two minor
caveats. First, equipping an item with direct status immunity
when out of combat will cure the corresponding status,
but equipping something with Poison
trait immunity won't immediately cure 'poison' status (entering combat
in this situation, however, will remove the status). Second, equipping a
Poison trait immunity item
(the Hero's Shield) during combat while afflicted with
'poison' status won't remove the status, but will cause it
to inflict zero damage.

And now, for some summary information to
give some idea of how they tend to affect a randomly chosen
enemy. Though this doesn't take into account how common the
enemies are, of course. The game data contains 384 total monsters,
including a few that you never actually fight. The second set of totals
below only counts the first 256 monsters in the list (the ones with Rages),
which ends up excluding most bosses and other one-time
enemies.

Flame

Ice

Thunder

Water

Wind

Earth

Poison

Holy

None

All

Total useless against

33

30

30

44

20

22

77

19

224

3

Total weak against *

121

59

69

65

16

5

53

64

83

2

Total with only this weakness

56

34

17

8

4

2

42

14

n/a

n/a

Useless - First 256 only

17

7

9

21

7

9

53

6

168

2

Weakness - First 256 only *

90

46

44

46

12

1

34

50

37

1

Only weakness - First 256 only

44

28

9

5

2

0

28

12

n/a

n/a

* One monster is technically weak against
all traits, but also absorbs them, and since absorption overrides
weakness, the weakness counts exclude it. Similarly, the totals
for Thunder weakness excludes
a different creature that has the trait flagged as both a weakness
and an absorption.

Flame:
A moderate number of enemies have defenses against it, but more
are weak to it than to any other attack type by a sizable margin, and
close to half of these have no other weakness. Luckily, this is one of
the easiest types of damage to use, thanks to the Flametongue,
Flame Rod, and Burning Knuckle, not to mention standard attack
magic and a number of skills. Defensively, Flame Shields absorb it,
making it easy to counter once they become available, and that's
not even getting into the wide variety of other equipment with
resistance, immunity, or absorption.

Ice: A fairly frequent
weakness, and few common enemies have protection against it. The
Icebrand and Ice Rod along with standard magic take care of
offense, while the ready availability of Ice Shields to absorb it
makes defense trivial in the later portion of the game.

Thunder:
Another fairly frequent weakness, though most that are weak
against it also have another weakness. Still, few common
enemies have any defense against it, and it's easy to come by.
The Thunder Blade, Thunder Rod, and standard attack magic
cover offense, while the absorption on the Thundergod's Shield
will be your main source of defense, especially given its lack
of any vulnerabilities, unlike the Flame and Ice Shields.

Water: Though
a fairly common weakness for enemies to have, few with this
weakness don't also have another one, and a larger than usual
number of foes have defenses against it. Offensive choices are
limited to the Trident and some more esoteric skills like Aqua
Breath, El Niño, and the Bismark summon. Defensive
options are similarly limited. The Carapace Shield, Dish, and
Armor Kappa are the only sources of absorption, and they give
bare minimum physical defense unless the wearer has 'kappa'
status. The few remaining choices are either unique (Hero's
Shield) or provide just partial resistance (Force Shield,
Minerva's Bustier).

Wind: An
uncommon weakness, but it's also uncommon for opponents to
have any protection. This causes the Kazekiri Blade in particular
to avoid being a liability except on rare occasions, which allows
its random Wind Scythe to shine, especially in Gau's hands.
Other offensive options include the Air Knife and Sakura Fubuki,
along with a few skills like Aeroga and Shinkuu Ha.
Defensively, the readily-available Thundergod's Shield provides
immunity, as do the less convenient Hero's Shield (of which only
one exists) and Minerva Bustier (which only two characters can
use). No equipment absorbs it.

Earth: The low
number of enemies guarded against this is deceptive, since most
attacks of this type will miss anything with 'levitate' status, and that
includes quite a few monsters—beyond those that have
explicit defenses, that adds another 78, with 57 of those in the first
256 monsters. The only attacks I know of in this type that bypass
this limitation are Lifeshaver and the Gravity Rod, which is also the
only weapon with this damage type. Additionally, very few enemies
are weak against it, with three of the five (Hidden and two of its
minions) appearing in the same battle, and two of the five (coliseum
Siegfried and one of the minions already mentioned) being weak
against every other element as well (the fifth enemy is the target
internally called Magic in the second tier of the final battle, which
also happens to be floating, rendering most attacks of this type
useless regardless). The redeeming factor is that the attacks you
get tend to be quite powerful, especially the one anyone can learn:
Quake. For defense, many
characters can use the Earth Garb, available unusually early,
for absorption. Other options are the Hero's Shield for immunity;
the Force Shield, Cat-Ear Hood, Force Armor, or Minerva's
Bustier to halve the damage; and, of course, you can avoid
most of these attacks just by floating.

Poison:
There are a lot of enemies that can laugh it off, but on the other
hand, a surprising number that are weak against it have no other
weaknesses. There aren't any particularly strong attacks of this
type, but there are readily available options in the Poison Rod,
Dark Claw, and two common spells. Defensively, the only options
are the Hero's Shield, Sleepy Cat Suit, Chocobo Suit, and Moogle
Suit for immunity, or the Minerva's Bustier to halve the damage.
No equipment absorbs it.

Holy: A
comparatively large number of enemies have this as a weakness,
and of the handful that are protected from it, the majority shrug off
pretty much everything else, too. Available early on in Mash's Aura
Cannon skill, then later taking a place in the magic list with the
Holy spell, this is also found
on many weapons, namely the Gladius, Excalibur, Holy Lance,
Holy Rod, Kaiser Knuckle, and Dragon Claw, with the Lightbringer
additionally having a random chance to cast the spell on attack.
Defensive options are virtually nonexistent, though, with only the
Hero's Shield providing absorption, and the Cat-Ear Hood and
Minerva's Bustier halving the damage.

Also remember that Gau and Gogo can
use appropriate Rages to alter their elemental defenses as
needed... assuming you know what to pick, of course. Magic Pot
deserves special mention for sheer resilience, using
Curega on top of absorbing
all eight traits and preventing all preventable status ailments.
Just don't expect much in the way of offense.

Flare or
Figa?

When is it better to use a less powerful but
defense-ignoring spell, instead of a stronger but defendable one?
The answer, of course, is "it depends", but let's go into
a little more depth here. I'll be using
Flare
and Figa for the comparisons,
since they're fairly analogous powerful late-game spells with
similar cost and difficulty to obtain, and because alliteration.
We'll assume there's a single target since bosses generally
work that way.

Figa
has roughly double the raw power of
Flare, so clearly it's the
superior option when the enemy has no magic defense, but this is
rarely the case. Other factors to consider are whether the spell
is striking a weakness ( Flare
obviously can't, since it has no element), whether the target has
'shell' status ( Flare ignores
this as well as defense), and whether the caster has 'transform'
status (this doubles the damage of most spells, but has no
effect on defense-ignoring ones).

Target weak against element?

no

YES

no

YES

no

YES

no

YES

Target has 'shell' status?

no

no

YES

YES

no

no

YES

YES

Caster has 'transform' status?

no

no

no

no

YES

YES

YES

YES

MDef for roughly equal damage:

128

192

64

160

192

224

160

208

When the enemy's magic defense is close
to the crossover point in the table above, both spells will inflict
similar amounts of damage. Use
Figa when target magic
defense is lower (less reduction means more damage), and
Flare when it's higher
(ignoring magic defense means damage stays constant).

Most bosses have magic defense
somewhere between 120 and 160, and some also have 'shell'
status, so Flare works as
least as well in most cases. However, if there's a weakness
available to exploit, it's virtually always more worthwhile to
do so, and Tina when Transformed is better off using
Figa in nearly any
situation, not just in boss battles—hardly anything has
enough in the way of magic defense for piercing it to justify
sacrificing the damage bonus. Conversely, whenever you're
going to be using defense-ignoring magic, there's little reason
to Transform in the first place.

Stat Charts

Character values for each stat, sorted from highest to lowest.
All values assume no Genjuu level-up bonuses and, except where
otherwise specified, no equipment.

Evade is documented for completeness
despite serving no purpose in an unmodified copy of the game.

Starting level when joining the party, or
rejoining after being leaving it, is determined by averaging the
levels of the current party members and applying a modifier.
As an example, Lock will start with a level two above the
party average, which at the beginning of the game simply
means Tina's level plus two.

Fleeing skill is an internal value that
affects how easily a character can flee from combat. Higher is
better.

HP and MP follow the same fixed growth
pattern for all characters (though Genjuu HP and MP
level-up bonuses will affect the gains for individual
levels when the appropriate bonuses are equipped). To give the
impression of more variation, each character has a fixed
additional amount of HP and MP. For example, the base HP value
at level 10 is 173. Tina gets 40 extra, so will have an actual HP of 213,
while Edgar's bonus of 49 makes his HP 222 at level 10. At higher
levels, the difference hardly matters (base HP at level 60 is 5050,
for example), but it at least adds some variety to the values.

MP growth has an interesting oddity,
though, in that the JP and NA versions use entirely different
growth curves. To summarize, the JP version has rapid gains in
the earlier levels which then fall off later on, while the NA version
has sluggish early gains that increase somewhat in the middle
levels before dropping off again. The JP version growth curve
results in higher MP totals at nearly all levels (it's only behind
during levels 54 to 61, and even then by at most 7 points),
especially the lower ones. From level 14 to level 45, the JP
version leads by at least 50 points, and from 24 to 35, the
difference exceeds 100. Put another way, a character with an
average extra MP value (about 10) has at least 25% more MP
from level 5 to level 37 in the Japanese version, and at least
50% more from level 14 to level 23. That makes a considerable
difference. Final base MP totals at level 99 reach 989 in the JP
version and 961 in the NA version.

If you're looking to maximize gains from
Genjuu bonuses, the JP version's greatest MP increases come
upon reaching levels 14 to 17 (+17), while in the NA version they
come on reaching levels 48 to 50 (also +17). The fact that 14 to 17
are likely to come and go before you have the ability to boost the
gains is a possible reason for the modified growth curve in the NA
version, but not a very good one. The largest HP gain (+162) occurs
when reaching level 70, with a steeper dropoff at higher levels than
lower (gains of at least +150 occur at levels from 63 to 73).

Main characters

Note that Umaro's high stats are rather
misleading due to his inability to change equipment or benefit from
Genjuu level-up bonuses. Gogo's low stats are presumably meant
as a tradeoff for flexibility, but a similar inability to equip Genjuu for
level-up bonuses compounds the problem.

Strength

Agility

Stamina

Magic

Initial Level

Fleeing Skill

Umaro

57

Lock

40

Umaro

46

Relm

44

Mog

avg +5

Lock

5

Mash

47

Shadow

38

Mash

39

Tina

39

Lock

avg +2

Shadow

5

Gau

44

Gau

38

Gau

36

Umaro

37

Cayenne

avg +2

Relm

5

Cayenne

40

Mash

37

Edgar

34

Celes

36

Edgar

avg +2

Mog

5

Shadow

39

Mog

36

Cayenne

33

Mog

35

Mash

avg +2

Gau

5

Edgar

39

Celes

34

Setzer

32

Stragus

34

Stragus

avg +2

Tina

4

Lock

37

Relm

34

Lock

31

Gau

34

Gau

avg +2

Edgar

4

Setzer

36

Tina

33

Celes

31

Shadow

33

Gogo

avg +2

Mash

4

Celes

34

Umaro

33

Shadow

30

Edgar

29

Tina

avg +0

Celes

4

Tina

31

Setzer

32

Tina

28

Setzer

29

Shadow

avg +0

Setzer

4

Mog

29

Edgar

30

Mog

26

Lock

28

Celes

avg +0

Gogo

4

Stragus

28

Gogo

30

Relm

22

Mash

28

Relm

avg +0

Cayenne

3

Relm

26

Cayenne

28

Gogo

20

Gogo

26

Setzer

avg +0

Stragus

3

Gogo

25

Stragus

25

Stragus

19

Cayenne

25

Umaro

avg +0

Umaro

3

Defense

MDef

Evade

MEvd

Extra HP

Extra MP

Umaro

89

Umaro

68

Shadow

28

Gau

18

Umaro

60

Relm

18

Mash

53

Mog

36

Gau

21

Mog

12

Mash

58

Tina

16

Mog

52

Gau

34

Lock

15

Shadow

9

Cayenne

53

Mog

16

Edgar

50

Tina

33

Relm

13

Celes

9

Shadow

51

Celes

15

Setzer

48

Celes

31

Mash

12

Relm

9

Edgar

49

Stragus

13

Cayenne

48

Relm

30

Mog

10

Tina

7

Lock

48

Gogo

12

Shadow

47

Stragus

27

Gogo

10

Stragus

7

Setzer

46

Gau

10

Lock

46

Setzer

26

Setzer

9

Gogo

6

Gau

45

Setzer

9

Celes

44

Shadow

25

Umaro

8

Umaro

5

Celes

44

Lock

7

Gau

44

Gogo

25

Celes

7

Mash

4

Tina

40

Edgar

6

Tina

42

Lock

23

Cayenne

6

Lock

2

Mog

39

Shadow

6

Gogo

39

Edgar

22

Stragus

6

Cayenne

1

Relm

37

Cayenne

5

Relm

35

Mash

21

Tina

5

Edgar

1

Gogo

36

Mash

3

Stragus

33

Cayenne

20

Edgar

4

Setzer

1

Stragus

35

Umaro

0

Attack power(unarmed)

Attack power(top weapon)

Total offense(unarmed)

Total offense(top weapon)

Gau

109

Tina

255

Gau

197

Edgar

347

Umaro

57

Lock

255

Umaro

171

Lock

343

Mash

36

Edgar

255

Mash

130

Mash

341

Cayenne

35

Celes

255

Cayenne

115

Celes

337

Shadow

33

Shadow

243

Shadow

111

Tina

331

Edgar

30

Mog

243

Edgar

108

Shadow

321

Setzer

28

Mash

241

Setzer

100

Cayenne

313

Celes

26

Cayenne

233

Lock

98

Umaro

312

Mog

26

Setzer

222

Celes

94

Mog

307

Lock

24

Gogo

217

Tina

84

Setzer

294

Gogo

23

Relm

215

Mog

84

Stragus

270

Tina

22

Stragus

214

Stragus

76

Relm

267

Relm

21

Umaro

198

Relm

73

Gogo

267

Stragus

20

Gau

109

Gogo

73

Gau

197

Total offense = Strength x2 (capped at 255)
+ Attack power. The top weapon selections are based on raw attack
power, and use the following weapons: Lightbringer for Tina, Lock,
Edgar, and Celes; Mutsunokami for Cayenne; Kagenui for Shadow;
Tiger Fangs for Mash; Gladius for Stragus, Relm, Setzer, and Gogo;
Glow Lance for Mog; no weapon for Gau since he can't naturally use
any; and Bone Club for Umaro since he's stuck with it regardless.
The total offense values for these include strength bonuses from the
weapons where applicable. Different weapons are often preferable
in practice thanks to useful effects or bonuses other than raw attack
power (for instance, the Wizard Rod's +7 magic and +30 MEvd
typically outweigh the Gladius's higher attack for Stragus, Relm,
and Gogo).

Guest characters

Only ally characters who actually fight appear in these lists.
I have excluded non-combatants such as Madin and the temporary
Mog used only for scenario selection, as well as uncontrollable
characters such as Cefca who function as party members only
during cutscenes.

Guest characters have fixed equipment,
so the concept of a top weapon doesn't apply. Instead, I list their
actual (with equipment) attack values and what they would be with
no equipment. I'm also listing total values for defensive stats since
invariable equipment makes it feasible to do so. Finally, two guest
characters have equipment bonuses to magic, which are noted in
the table below and factored into the sorting.